Acquiring new habits takes longer than you think.
That’s why it’s essential to make them as frictionless as possible – it’s easy to get some consistency going.
After my week offline I’m always hopeful that I’ve reset some of my relationships with technology, only to find old habits slipping back within a week or two. And that’s only natural – I spent a lot longer developing those old habits than I did resetting them.
James Clear says to make habits atomic – so small they’re easy to practice. Leo Babauta in Zen To Done helped me develop a walking and running habit over a decade ago – by limiting the first week to just a couple of minutes. Make it regular, then grow it.
So I’m trying to be aware and intentional about my new habit timeline, setting goals but also taking small steps toward them. In time, I’ll continue to build them to where I want them, but for now it’s better to do something, every day, rather than try to do it all today.
This is why I encourage my students to practice a bare minimum, but regularly. 5 minutes a day, done regularly, will lock in a habit that can grow with them. Ambitious immediate goals are built to fail.